Monthly archive

Mohammad Hamid AnsariMohammad Hamid Ansari was declared elected Vice President of India in a three cornered contest on Friday. The 70-year old former career diplomat will be sworn in as the 13th Vice President on Saturday. He secured 455 of the 752 valid polled votes; 31 more than the combined strength of the Congress led UPA, BSP and the Left parties. The cross voting was mostly from the BJP ranks. Even some from the Third Front also voted for our nominee, said P R Dasmunsi, the I&B Minister and Ansari campaign manager

The summer holidays in Saudi Kingdom that began recently has brought a much needed respite to the life of Sri Lankan housemaid Rizana Nafeek, who is condemned to be beheaded by Saudi authorities for 'murder of a Saudi infant.' As a result of residents in Riyadh leaving their homes with the onset of summer holidays, most offices and even the Appeal Courts have shut down in the city. "The courts have closed due to the summer holidays period. And at the moment we are closely monitoring the situation" said a Sri Lanka Foreign Ministry source speaking to the "Asian Tribune."

Australia based Society for Peace, Unity and Human Rights for Sri Lanka has welcomed the recent Supreme Court decision not to entertain the petition filed by the NGO - Centre For Policy Alternatives (CPA) against the Sri Lankan government’s move to declare Sampur as a high security zone. In a statement released by Dr. Dasarath Jayasuriya, President of SPUR said that it was a welcome relief to all patriotic Sri Lankans who are concerned about the national security, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Sri Lanka. In the statement Dr. Dasarath Jayasuriya has pointed out that the importance of Sampur to the security of the Trincomalee harbor has been highlighted in the detailed report produced by the strategic assessment team of the US Pacific Command (PACOM).

On Thursday it was the turn of the archeologist Buddhist monk and leader of the Jathika Hela Urumaya Venerable Ellawela Medhananda Thero to hit back. He was simply preaching from the Discourse on the Outcast or Vasala Sutta in the Sutta Nipata in the Khuddaka Nikaya. In an obvious reference he was describing who a Vasalaya or an outcast is in the parliament in Sri Jayawardhanapura Kotte. The leader of the Jathika Hela Urumaya is in the Center of a political storm these days after leader of the Opposition and the United National Party called him as a monk riding in a Mercedes Benz to travel along the ‘Noble Eight Fold Path’.

Bangladesh Anatomy of A Coup by Lawrence Lifschultz Noted :“When, on the night of august 14,1975, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was killed along with a large number of members of his family and friends, it was put out that the assassins had acted uniterally,with no larger political objective than of ridding the country of a tyrant. Unspecific talk about ‘foreign involvement’ in the assassination or, more explicitely, of CIA involvement, was, on the basis of evidence available then, rightly dismissed as spacious propaganda. These conclusions now need to be completely reexamined. According to new information obtained from interviews with senior U S embassy officials then in Dacca, from well-informed Bengali sources, and from official documents available in the U S now consequent upon the Freedom of Information Act, it now appears that not only did the U S have prior knowledge of the coup, but that American embassy personnel had discussed possibilities of a coup more than six months prior to his death.

“Political Decapitation” is the only way to describe what the interim caretaker government of Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed supported by the army chief Gen Moeenuddin Ahmed is doing in Bangladesh. There is acute awareness of the game plan among political activists there and they describe it as “the policy of minus two”. Minus, that is, the two main charismatic leaders of the two most popular political parties- the Awami League of the founder of Bangladesh, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib-ur- Rehman and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party headed by the wife of the man who was responsible for his assassination. Sheikh Hasina Wazed, daughter of Bangabandhu, and leader of the Awami League has been arrested on charges of corruption, extortion and murder and Begum Zia-ur- Rahman head of the BNP has been kept in virtual house arrest. Corruption charges are slapped on her also.

The Sri Lankan military has quickly demonstrated its intentions regarding the capture of the island’s eastern province from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Far from “liberating” the people of the East, the security forces are establishing a military occupation over the entire area in preparation for stamping out any opposition to the government and its continuing communal war. Following the army’s conquest of the LTTE’s last major eastern stronghold, President Mahinda Rajapakse ordered a victory celebration on July 19 at which he declared that a “new dawn” was opening up for the East of the country. The ceremony, which evoked little popular enthusiasm, was an unabashed glorification of the renewed civil war that has already resulted in thousands of deaths and turned 200,000 into refugees.

Sri Lanka is definitely not internationally isolated in her struggle against Tamil Tiger terrorism very correctly stated by this South Asia nation’s foreign minister Rohitha Bogallagama in parliament on August 9 explaining what the Rajapaksa administration has undertaken working toward a dual politico-military solution. But the issue here is whether Sri Lanka has undertaken to strike a balance between her interests and that of the most important nation in the international community, the United States.